Elizabethtown, Ky--February 26, 2007
Judge Harry "Ebeneezer" Berry delved deep into the hole of his black-ink heart and decided that Fiscal Court will no longer pay the Hardin County School Board the state's shortfall for busing Hardin County's private school students to their campuses after the 2006-2007 school year concludes.
While this decision may have merit on technicalities, it is not only the wrong thing to do, it is unnecessary and divisive.
Cut is Unnecessary
According to an article in Sunday's News-Enterprise, the annual shortfall the county is paying to the school board is four-thousand dollars ($4,000.00).
This is little more than one ten-thousandth (.0001) of the thirty-four million plus dollar ($34,896,131.00) 2006-2007 budget, spread out over more than 600 sub-accounts.
Out of the more than 600 sub-accounts, over 180 of them have budgeted amounts of over $10,000.00. If only $22.23--less than the cost of one tank of gas--were taken from each of these 180+ accounts, that alone would pay for the $4,000.00 shortfall.
Some of these 180+ accounts have budgeted amounts of hundreds-of -thousands or millions of dollars. Finding four-thousand dollars wouldn't be hard to do if one was so inclined.
One of the sub-account appropriations is $40,000.00 for Special Project-BRAC Support. If that amount were reduced to $36,000.00, the other four-thousand dollars could be used to pay for the shortfall, and the budget could still be reduced by $4,000.00.
BRAC is certainly important to our county's future, but no more important than the education of its children.
Or, the judge and the three commissioners could reduce their salaries by an average of $1,000.00 each and effect the same savings.
These are just two quick examples of why it is not necessary, no matter what the reasons cited, to stop paying the shortfall until the state is made to increase funding to pay fully for the private school busing it fairly legislated decades ago.
Berry also says additional private schools that may be created in the future will grow the need for more private school busing, and thus increase the size of the shortfall. But the county is also going to grow, and even at normal growth rates--not including the windfall BRAC may bring--county revenues will also grow.
That means though the dollar amount of the shortfall for private school busing may grow, the infinitesimal percentage of county revenues the shortfall represents could even decrease.
Making a federal case out of this pea-sized percentage of the county's budget is unnecessary, even if it is rightfully the responsibility of the state.
Issue Is Divisive
Judge Berry's combative nature is well known. He often struggles to be polite in court meetings, and when he does it appears forced.
In his article explaining and defending his decision to cut the busing money, his combative and divisive nature was in full bloom.
He spoke of Radcliff vs. Elizabethtown, State vs. County, County vs. School Board--and most unfortunately--children who attend public schools vs. children who attend private schools.
Berry's modus operandi is simplistic. For Berry there is his view, and then the wrong view. He wears an accountant's visor at all times, when sometimes he should shed it and look up, beyond the ledger sheet. This is one of those times.
Now Berry's single-minded combativeness pits non-Catholics in our community vs. Catholics, and perhaps non-Christians vs. Christians.
Most private schools are Christian (Catholic and Protestant). By his actions, Berry is dividing the community over a tiny amount of money and a legal technicality.
Perhaps Berry is a conservative without compassion. Perhaps he is an accountant that lacks perspective. Either way, the divisiveness he has wrought in the community was unnecessary and wrong-headed.
What Berry Should Do
Berry and the commissioners should rescind this decision.
Instead of cutting the shortfall funding at the county level they should use their bully pulpit and considerable influence to convince our state legislators to correct the problem now.
Berry seems irritated that the state did not do so in 2006, as he says was promised. But that is no reason to make such a divisive decision here and now.
A Personal Appeal
Judge Berry:
No one is asking you to say you are wrong.
All you are being asked to do is to say that even though you are technically correct, you want to put the unity of the community-- and most importantly--the interests of all school children and their parents ahead of being technically correct; while you and the commissioners bring all the political pressure you can to bear upon the State Legislature.
You were elected by many of the same people you are now ready to disenfranchise.
Are the private school children of this county less important to you than public school children? Do you have something against private schools? Do you have something against Catholics, or Christians, or someday perhaps Muslims, Jews, or others who live in our community but prefer a private school for their children?
Are the county taxes these people pay any less valuable than the those paid by public school families? Do you not see the savings to the state and the county afforded by school buildings, teachers, and school lunches and activities provided by private funds?
You say Fiscal Court is not in the school business. But Fiscal Court is in the service business. Service to the community is the only reason county government exists. Regardless of technical boundaries, your fiefdom is a part of the whole, not a whole unto itself.
So, if the state is a tad short in funding private school bus funding, is the microscopic amount Fiscal Court is spending to temporarily bridge the gap worth division in our communities?
Is being "right" worth division in our communities?
One does not always have to be right. But one should always try to do the right thing, and that sometimes means looking up from the ledger to take in the larger picture. Government is more than mere arithmetic.
We hope you will do just that by reversing your decision. And we will cheer you and stand behind efforts to pressure our State Senators and Representatives, as well as the State Legislature at- large, to fund private school student busing fully as they should.
If All Else Fails
For the rest of us, there is not much we can do if Judge Berry decides to stick stubbornly to this divisive course of action. Nothing we can do that is, until we get the opportunity to vote again.
In the meantime, perhaps we should all pray that the Ghosts of School Years Past, Present and Future visit Judge Berry in his sleep.
Maybe they can whisk him back to the time when he was a child, or take him to a home where the parents of public and private school children are rushing to get the children up and off to school, hustling to get to work on time, laboring to make ends meet, and worrying about the children getting back home from school safely.
Maybe they can take him into the future where, if worse comes to worse, the parents of private school children struggle even harder to juggle school, work, and home without having a bus for the children to ride.
Who knows? Dreams and nightmares might wake Berry up to the world beyond his ledger.
It worked for ol' Ebeneezer Scrooge. Let's hope Berry is not even more miserly and stubborn than he was.